What are you playing on your Wii U/Wii right now?

So I started playing Darksiders: Warmastered edition today on my Wii U and I have to say I'm kinda surprised by how much I'm enjoying it so far.

Its effectively a Zelda clone with much faster combat but it's character design is very different and has wonderful voice acting!

Has anyone else played this at all? It's pretty much the last non dancing Wii U physical release too I think!

Not played the WiiU release but I've played a little of Darksiders. I found the dungeon design overly long and exhausting so I burned out pretty quick. Glad to hear you're liking it though!

Gave Darksiders II a bash recently (albeit on PS4) and it reminds me of Soul Reaver. Fun, but very bleak.

On a related note, I was looking at the Wii-U eshop and debating what 5 games would be must-buys, particularly given I doubt the Wii-U eshop will be around for too much longer.

Advance Wars: Dual Strike (is this much different to the original GBA one?)
Super Metroid
Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow
Super Mario 64
The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past

I'd be looking at playing on the GamePad.

Earthbound is surely the big one as it's that, SNES Classic or a expensive import.

Might be others like that, be a interesting feature on exclusive (sort of) WiiU eShop games.

Dual strike and aria of sorrow are great picks!

Do you have a snes classic? If you don't I would highly recommend Mario rpg and if you do, Paper Mario 64 is a great game to play on the game pad 😁

masofdas wrote:

Earthbound is surely the big one as it's that, SNES Classic or a expensive import.

It's also on the N3DS Virtual Console.

Seconding Aria of Sorrow - absolutely cracking game. Is Dawn of Sorrow up there too? They make for a great duology.

I forget the New 3DS has a exclusive Virtual Console

Aye! I've got a few SNES games downloaded through it. I totally don't blame you for not remembering though - it was hardly heavily promoted!

I'd also make a case for Super Mario Advance 4 Super Mario Bros 3 God Bless, as it had all of the eReader levels unlocked.

Jimbob wrote:

I'd also make a case for Super Mario Advance 4 Super Mario Bros 3 God Bless, as it had all of the eReader levels unlocked.

I don't think I can use my eReader on anything.

Anyway I posted in the retro thread as the Wii to me is now retro but I did spot this thread and I know likes of Balla who is less likely to go to retro without a little push to talk about the Wii.

I've read your post several times Mas, and I think there's a message in there somewhere that I can't quite grasp...

I've been using my Wii U for the first time since Feb 2018 according to the daily log.

I started thinking about the Wii U recently in regards to Ouya now being offline, Minecraft Story Mode no longer available to download and in relation to my feelings on the Switch that have been brought up in the Lite thread.

Most of my time the past two days has been on the eShop redownloading everything as the 1TB Hard Drive I had been using all those years ago, I started using on my Xbox One X. I did find out that was overkill as the 50+ games I own digitally on Wii U only came to 60GB, that I bought a 64GB USB stick along with having 25GB on the system free.

I didn't realise that save data for games saved to the HDD and not the console itself, so today when I put in LEGO City, well I would have had to start a new game. Which is fine as it's been so long I've played likes of LEGO City that I would start again anyway and something like Xenoblade X, I would have no idea where I was or what I would be doing. It's more a pain for likes of Mario Kart 8 where I need to unlock stuff again.

That it sort feels like I'm starting afresh and experiencing some of these games for the first time, which is true for some games such as Paper Mario which I've never played till today.

I'm about 1.5hr into Paper Mario and I do like the card system, however, does tad annoy me as I was saying years ago Pokemon TCG would be great on Wii U as you'd have your deck on the screen and the board on the TV.

Looking at what I own I can see myself playing
Paper Mario, Which also looks great from what I've started playing
Tokyo Mirage Sessions, Will we ever get a Switch port? But it is a tad long to fit in on a whim
Xenoblade X, I didn't like it last time I gave it ago and much like TMS might be a tad long
Captain Toad, I never finished it
Donkey Kong, Didn't give it enough love because I was down on 2D platformers

Don't own as of yet
Devil's Third, Just to see if it's that bad
Kirby, Same as Donkey Kong
Ninja Gaiden 3, Might be better playing via Xbox One
Project Zero, If I can find for cheap
Sonic's, Both of them aren't good but I would like to play them as haven't played a 3D Sonic for ages
Splatoon, Never touched the single-player and I did like the single player in the sequel
Yoshi, Another 2D platformer though

Played some Call of Duty Black Ops II as well which had 110 people online, I'm now curious what Ghosts is like in 2019.  I did also mention I've got about 50 games downloaded with very little I've actually played and the eShop does still have some good games on it (5 new ones this year but those look rather bad) along with the Virtual Console (GBA looks real appealing) but not sure I want to be buying Digital games for the Wii U in 2019 unless on sale or something.

So yeah playing the Wii U, not sure how long it will last as my backlog on Xbox One is rather big, recently got some new PSVR games and the Switch will start to see some use with Fire Emblem.

PS
My gamepad no longer charges that I can only play when it's plugged-in direct to the mains, I can't find the OG battery as I replaced mine with the extended one Nintendo did, to test that out. So I've bought a new one of eBay and I hope it's the battery that it is the issue and not the gamepad itself as I don't want to be buying a new gamepad (Could use as an excuse to get the Zelda one) for it but it might be worth seeing if yours are all okay still, as could be much like the PSP where the batteries just die.

Got my Wii U back the other day and instead of playing some 'new' titles I hadn't played through yet like Xeno Chron X and Pikmin 3, on a whim I decided to start playing Twilight Princess HD instead. A remaster of a Zelda that is somewhat special to me and which I hadn't played in years. Back in the day I went into the game with so much hype and I believe it's one of the only Zelda games I bothered 100%-ing.

Just beaten the second dungeon and it's been a fairly pleasant ride so far.

Both the HD Zelda ports are so great on Wii U! Are you gonna try and 100% it again kriken? And have you tried the wolf link amiibo trial dungeons thing yet?

In regards to my own Wii U playing, i picked up the Steamworld collection on disc for it a little while back and im loving Steamworld Heist again

Yeah, I played Wind Waker HD and it has some overall pretty nice changes. They are more minor in TPHD but still welcome. I feel like 100%ing the game again but not sure I will yet as I'll likely get sidetracked and play something else. I do also want to play the wolf link amiibo content at some point, yeah.

Hate to admit it but I kind of got bored of Twilight Princess HD and criticisms I'd heard about the game a lot are kind of true. I am most of the way through the game but for a while now I have been driven more by curiosity of what I had forgotten.

In my last session I did the Temple of Time and the Yeti Mansion. The Temple of Time was a great dungeon. Loved the bit where you guide the statue all the way back to the entrance. Yeti Mansion is also good. Competently made like all the dungeons in this game but the key item, the ball and chain, really brought home how the items in this game are kind of boring and are not greatly used outside their dungeons.

The ball and chain like the dominion rod and beyblade is a quirky-looking item but the application of it is so bland. Break ice. Wow yes, of course, just the job for a ball and chain. A bomb wouldn't do that. Meanwhile token rails are thrown in for the spin top to get across gaps.

I guess a lot of Zelda games can be poor in this regard but it contrasts really sharply to, say, Ocarina of Time which has very creative uses for its range of somewhat basic items.

Forgotten how goofy and spectacle-based the game was. It's trying so hard. Maybe it was cooler back in the day. Speaking of what hasn't aged so well, there's the art style. The new textures are really nice but they can't really escape the outdated character models. This game really could have benefited a lot from new ones. Smoother with a bit more of a cartoon colour palette - just a touch more. WWHD obviously doesn't need this nearly as much.

Also a bit of a nerdy gripe but what is with the text font? It just looks kind of bad.

Midna is a lot more hand-holdy than I remember, telling me unprompted on a lot of occasions exactly what to do when it's obvious.

The hero mode kind of sucks. Overall, enemies still do a pitiful amount of damage. It does add up throughout a dungeon crawl and then you're left with an annoying beeping for ages because heart drops are disabled (if you've already used your potion). Then when you die you respawn in the same room anyway. This was annoying early on in the game having to repeat big rooms over and over from getting hit by dumb stuff. Then it's annoying for the former reasons when you get more heart containers/pieces and the initial challenge is gone.

The ganondorf amiibo doubles damage again but I don't have it. It would have been nice to have it so enemies could remain somewhat threatening for the rest of the game and not just contribute to annoying chip damage. I feel like with hero mode on its own and how it is, I would have just had more fun with normal mode: quickly dispatching enemies while just tanking the damage since it doesn't matter, so I can quickly move onto to dungeon puzzles which is the strength of this game.

Probably didn't explain that very well and sound contradictory, and I guess it's just hard to balance, but essentially I think the mode is half-assed and not fit for purpose while it slows down the game.

Want to stress that I still think it's a good game. The rant is a bit random and kind of for myself - for a while I've considered this a contender for maybe the best Zelda game for its epic feel and competent dungeon design despite the games' faults but I don't think I would now. A lot of the time the game is just dull and weird, and not in a fun or interesting way. It's missing the spark that Majora's Mask, Wind Waker and Botw have. It doesn't match the atmosphere and feel of OoT, which has its lighthearted and funny moments but they never feel too silly.

Meanwhile I started replaying No More Heroes on a whim and have been liking it a lot more than I thought I would have. Been a long time since I played through it so it's all fresh again, but it honestly feels like I'm enjoying it even more than my first playthrough. Real nice flow to the combat and of course it's just so bonkers. Don't know if I'll replay NMH2 afterwards, but I'm feeling like going into Travis Strikes Again after this one.

That's sad to read. TP remains in my top ten of all time, and this makes me want to leave it preserved as an almost perfect memory.

That said, there are some aspects I knew about even back then. The art style wasn't great at the time, several items were underused, and it wasn't all that hard. The spectacle papered over that latter crack. And, as Mas will tell you, at least it had items.

I'm gong to argue that BotW does have items (the runes) they are just not done in the traditional sense which was the whole point of the game, and what's more you are constantly using them for various situations & more importantly you are absolutely free to use them in any way you like.

Kriken wrote:

Midna is a lot more hand-holdy than I remember, telling me unprompted on a lot of occasions exactly what to do when it's obvious.

This same thing has put me off Link's Awakening big time to the point that I just don't feel bothered to return to it since beating the second dungeon.

I'm guessing that's the remake of Link's Awakening. Did notice that when I was watching someone play it. I think I'm just going to grab the original at some point when I feel like playing through it.

Also agreed when it comes to Botw runes being effectively items and that they're used well. They had to ditch traditional items to facilitate the 'pick your own dungeon order' formula, which I know ALBW worlds did in a different way with 'items', but this method is fine too. Really one of the things I wanted more from Botw was more dungeon/s.

Aye it's the remake & yeah I'm a big fan of the original so at this point I'd probably recommend that most folk play that version.

Runes aren't not the same as items to solve Dungeons (remember those), why Link's Awakening HD was good as it felt like a Zelda game.

I might go back to Tokyo Mirage Sessions on WiiU and not play a £40 port

Which is why I said they are not items in the traditional Zelda sense but they are still items that help you solve the games puzzles in a variety of ways & more importantly are used throughout your entire adventure. Also, I'm not saying that Link's awakening is bad just that returning to the old formula feels a tad boring for me after playing something as magical as BotW.

A bit of a shame they chose to go with a remake rather than a brand new top down Zelda game as well because as Kirken mentions they can still shake up that old formula in interesting ways like they did with ALBW.

Ultimately whether or not Botw felt like a Zelda game to me is irrelevant as I just think it's a great game and had a lot of fun with it. Fair enough if you prefer Link's Awakening HD and other Zeldas though, Mas.

Re. items, I was specifically referring to the traditional Zelda style of items, where you have an arsenal that increases in volume and versatility as you go through the game. Granted, that pretty much enforces (a) dungeon linearity and (b) some items being used infrequently if at all. I still like that! It allows for dungeon puzzles that use three different items in tandem, something ALBW could barely ever do; and a growing arsenal with new functionality, something BotW couldn't do. I'm not saying I dislike the BotW approach (I did dislike the ALBW one ), but they do different things and I'd like to see both going forward in various games.

I too would rather have had a new 2D Zelda, but not doing the stuff they did in ALBW. That's just me though.

Fair points. I guess the Link's Awakening remake was good for showing the traditional formula still holds value and that not all new games are 'open' for the sake of openness.